The Atlanta Hawks knocked off division rivals, the Miami Heat, 103-95 at Philips Arena last night. The Heat were very shorthanded last night, playing without Dion Waiters, Luke Babbitt, Justise Winslow, James Johnson, Josh Richardson and Chris Bosh (as they have done all season) but got a significant contribution from Tyler Johnson, who scored a career high 27 points on the second night of a back-to-back.

Losing streak snapped

It’s over! The Hawks’ seven game losing streak is over, it’s only their second win in their last 12 games. How badly did they need this win?

“As bad as we need air.” — Paul Millsap

“He’s right. That’s all we’ve been thinking about since the last game, how we could come in and get this game. I thought our effort and our energy were in the right place and we got a good win.” — Dwight Howard

The Hawks are still below .500 with an 11-12 record, but it’s a start, something to build on. They actually played a very decent game against the shorthanded Heat, playing well on both sides of the floor. Of course, Coach Bud never settles and knows the Hawks can play much better.

“It’s good. I think we can play a lot better. We can get better. The work the guys put in the last couple days….the ball movement, the 27 assists is better. I think we need to keep building and keep getting better, but it’s good to get a win.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

Bud briefly mentioned the 27 assists the Hawks registered, some of the ball movement last night was exquisite and the Hawks, having struggled with their ball movement of late, have now dished out 53 assists in their last two games. A very positive trend.

Another lineup change

Thabo Sefolosha continued — as expected of course — his new role as the starting small forward in place of Kyle Korver, but Coach Bud was forced into another change following the news that Kent Bazemore would be sitting the next two games with a knee injury. In his place, Bud went with Tim Hardaway Jr., and he had a so-and-so night. He scored seven points on 3-of-9 shooting in 21 minutes. I thought he did a decent job out there, certainly a better one than the boxscore would suggest. I liked his energy and he was adequate on defense.

With Baze out for the next game at the very least, this is a very interesting time. If THJ plays well, there’s an opportunity/excuse to slide THJ — or Korver for that matter — back into the starting lineup in place of Bazemore, who has been struggling throughout the season. That’ll be interesting to monitor going forward.

Millsap and Dwight doing work

Paul Millsap and Dwight Howard were fantastic on both ends of the floor last night. On the defensive end, the pair locked down the paint last night. The Heat could only score 26 points in the paint last night (half of the Hawks’ total paint points) and shot only 39% at the rim — the league average is 55%. The pair also combined for five blocks and five steals

“All we’ve been thinking about since the last game is how we can come in and get this game, I thought our effort and our energy was in the right place and we got a good win.” — Dwight Howard

The pair — more so Dwight — struggle on offense at times, but last night saw both Millsap and Dwight make significant contributions on the offensive end, combining for 44 points (23 for Dwight, 21 for Paul) and 26 rebounds (17 for Dwight, nine for Paul). Millsap looked as though he hasn’t missed a beat after missing three games with a hip injury and Dwight held his own dunk-athon.

“Dwight and Paul just put their stamp on the game.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

We all know Paul Millsap is capable of this kind of performance on a regular basis, but I’d love to see Dwight have a few more games like this, to see him contributing more on the offensive end, even if he only scored something like 16 points. Shoutout to Dwight though, he went 5-for-6 at the free throw line last night. You love to see that.

Limiting Hassan Whiteside

Heat center Hassan Whiteside struggled to make a significant impact on this game, eight points on 4-of-12 shooting, four turnovers, five fouls and only one block (which is low for his standards) in 35 minutes of play. The Hawks did a great job making life very difficult for Hassan in the paint, credit both Millsap and Dwight for that, and Mike Muscala for that matter who put in a great shift in the fourth quarter.

The Hawks made life uncomfortable for Whiteside. Here, Dwight uses his strength to bother Whiteside and knock him away from his spot. Whiteside puts up the shot, but it falls short.

Solid resistance — as you’d expect, to be fair — from Dwight to make things difficult for his opponent.

Here, Whiteside receives the ball on the block and the Hawks swarm him, giving him no chance of putting up a decent shot. In the end, the ball is poked loose and Whiteside commits a frustrated foul.

Defense like this was one of the reasons Miami struggled to score in the paint last night.

The ball is thrown to Whiteside in the third quarter and you’d expect him to have his way with Mike Muscala, who just isn’t built as Whiteside. But Moose does a great job staying vertical and the help arrives in the form of Korver and Paul Millsap, who swats the ball out of bounds.

Excellent swarming defense, in a one-on-one situation, this probably ends in a bucket for Whiteside. Again, the Hawks making life for Whiteside very difficult.

Overall, the Hawks got in Whiteside’s head, made his life miserable on the offensive end and put him in the mix with pick-and-rolls which created problems for the Heat.

“Tonight we tried to do a good job of keeping him out of the paint, making sure he didn’t get any deep catches and offensive rebounds.” — Dwight Howard

Dennis Schröder’s great fourth quarter

Have to give the Heat a lot of credit, on the second night of a back-to-back they fought hard and got themselves right back into this game having trailed by 15 points in the third quarter. The Hawks needed to respond in order to finish the job, and Dennis Schröder stepped up. Normally when someone ‘steps up’ in the fourth quarter, usually that means they scored 10+ points in the period. Not so with Dennis, it was his ability to not only score but to set up his teammates that really made a huge difference in the fourth quarter. Five of his seven assists came in the final period and he added six points himself to the cause.

I didn’t see many people talking about it (I more than likely missed it), but Dennis’ performance in the final period was significant. I was pleasantly surprised.

A better job taking care of the ball

I’ve been vocal, often, when the Hawks turn the ball over too much, so it’s only fair I give them credit when they do take care of the ball. The Hawks committed 14 turnovers last night, the Heat only scoring 10 points off of which. The Heat turned the ball over 16 times themselves and the Hawks made them pay by scoring 21 points off of them. A much better job by the Hawks taking care of the ball.

Thabo’s huge putback jam

Watch first, talk later.

Woo, boy. Not only was this a thing of beauty, but it was also a huge moment in this game. The Heat had just reeled a 10-0 run and the crowd were getting anxious. This not only stopped the rot, but got the crowd right back into this game and the Hawks kickstarted from there.

“I saw him shooting. There was a little bit of a scramble. Both of the bigs were out (away from the rim) so I wanted to go rebound and the ball bounced the right way.” — Thabo Sefolosha

Quick side note, Coach Spo was piiiiiiissed, look how he storms onto the court after that dunk. He was not happy.

Up next

The Hawks (11-12) are back it again on Friday in Milwaukee where they’ll take on the Bucks.

The Atlanta Hawks dropped their latest contest against the Oklahoma City Thunder, 102-99 at Philips Arena. Russell Westbrook notched his sixth straight triple-double with 32 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists. Anthony Morrow added another 15 points off of the bench.

Not an awful loss

Depending what way you look at it, of course Sure, it’s the Hawks’ seventh straight loss and their tenth in their last 11 games and that’s obviously not fantastic. If you looked at the result, but not the game, you’d be disappointed. But having watched the game, the Hawks did everything they needed to do — over the course of a 48 minute game — to win this game. Unfortunately, there exists a man named Russell Westbrook, who we’ll get to later.

What was most encouraging (to me) from this game was the return of Atlanta Hawks basketball: ball movement. The Hawks were moving the ball as we’re accustomed to seeing and they finished the game with 26 assists, the most they’ve registered in a game since they dished out 29 assists against the Milwaukee Bucks on November 16th. Stuff like this has been missing of late, it was good to see it return.

(Great ball movement here even though it didn’t result in a bucket)

Bud on ball-movement offense: "It’s only your identity if that’s what you do. It’s not something you can talk about. You have to do it."

The Hawks did well to recover from a 15 point deficit to give themselves a chance to tie this game at the end of the fourth, but the Hawks’ last play was disrupted by a tip, and in the end THJ hoisted an airball three with Oladipo draped all over him. It wasn’t really Tim’s fault, although the Hawks probably should’ve used their 20 second timeout when it became obvious that the play was broken, there would’ve been time to draw something up

Defensively the Hawks were much more focused than they were in Toronto, pretty solid although they lost track of Anthony Morrow (a very well known three-point threat) way too often as he went off for 15 points off the bench.

Tough loss for the Hawks, but they did everything they needed to to pull out a win. This drought should not last for much longer if the Hawks produce a similar performance against the Heat on Wednesday, not every team has Russell Westbrook on their team.

Lineup change

Coach Bud finally caved, he finally changed the starting lineup. This is not something Bud usually does, he’s a man who sticks to his group no matter how bad things can get (unless push comes to shove like it did in the playoffs last season), so that does tell you a fair bit about the current state of affairs. Thabo Sefolosha replaced Kyle Korver in the starting lineup in a move Coach Bud said was not a short term one. Here’s what he said before the game.

“I think change up the mix of the group a little bit. I think Kyle can be really effective off the bench. Put Thabo in there with the starters, the impact he has at both ends of the court, the way he’s played. Really, just changing up the mix. Obviously, we are hopeful it will be good for both (Korver and Thabo) and us in the end.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

Before we get to how this change fared, worth mentioning a few things about the change.

This doesn’t help the Hawks, at all, on the offensive end. That starting unit, even with Korver, struggled on the offensive end and taking away the only above average three-point shooter isn’t a sound thing. Sure, the team gets better defensively but defense — for the most part — hasn’t been the problem. It has been the offense. If Kent Bazemore hadn’t just been given a four year, $70 million deal I think he would be the one sent to the bench. Korver has struggled, sure, but Bazemore has arguably struggled more. The problem with benching Baze, what kind of message would you be sending out if you benched your $70 million man after just 21 games? Plus, Bazemore’s confidence is, more than likely, pretty low right now, sending him to the bench would more than likely worsen that. Bud had to change something, but this (at least I don’t think) was the right thing to do, I would’ve benched Baze.

Anyways, the change allowed Sefolosha to guard Westbrook from the get-go, which was convenient, and he did a great job on that front, and Thabo fared as you probably would’ve imagined — six points on 3-of-6 shooting. Korver, however had a good game, scoring 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting and 3-of-5 from downtown. I do, however, think that there was no correlation between Korver being benched and Korver having a great game, Korver just had a good game.

It remains to be seen if this change will be successful or not. It’s just one game.

Paul Millsap returns

After missing his last three games with a hip injury, Paul Millsap returned the court for the Hawks and instantly showed why he is so important for this team. He scored 24 points on 8-of-14 shooting, collected five rebounds, dished out four assists and came up with three steals. He does it all for this team on both ends of the floor, and his versatility also allowed the Hawks to play him at the center spot as the Hawks mounted their comeback.

We talked about the ball movement — or lack thereof — against the Raptors, this one possession helped me realise that it’s Paul Millsap, not Dennis Schröder, who facilitates the offense that Mike Budenholzer wants to implement. He’s the one the Hawks play through.

Pass. Move. Set screen. Pass. He just makes the right plays, doesn’t force the issue and just plays within the offense as it was intended. He really does do it all. It’s great to see Millsap back in action.

The Russell Westbrook Show

Man, Russell Westbrook is goooood… I mentioned Russ and his triple-double in passing, but he truly was the difference last night. 27 of his 32 points came in the second half, 16 of those 27 second half points came in the third quarter where he single handedly outscored the Hawks 16-15 before scoring another 11 in the fourth quarter. Like I said, the Hawks did everything they needed to to win this game, it’s just that Westbrook did more. He literally does everything, he’s just incredible.

“He can do so many different things. He plays as such a high energy level. You have to try to take his air space, contest his shot. He made a bunch tonight.” — Thabo Sefolosha

Another rough night for Baze

It was, as it has often been the case this season, another night to forget for Kent Bazemore. He went scoreless on 0-of-7 shooting and he played jut 17 minutes. What is there to say at this point? He’s fortunate to be starting still and if he continues to struggle like this, does Bud have much other choice other than to bench him? Don’t get it twisted though, Bazemore is much better than this shooting slump may have you believing, but he needs to really dig deep right now.

Oladipo’s poster

Victor Oladipo produced one of his best dunks of the season as he stuffed this one over Dwight Howard.

“About time. I told him about time he dunked on somebody. He got all that athleticism and ain’t dunked on nobody yet. Finally. Finally.” — Russell Westbrook

Up next

The Hawks (10-12) are in action again on Wednesday when they’ll welcome the Miami Heat into Philips Arena for another division matchup.

Oh boy… The Hawks somehow managed to follow up their 36 point loss against the Detroit Pistons with a 44 point loss against the Toronto Raptors — 128-84 — at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday evening. DeMar DeRozan led the Raptors with 21 points, one of eight players who scored double digits for the Raptors. The Raptors outscored the Hawks 42-14 in the fourth quarter.

Tailspinning out of control

This was the Hawks’ ninth loss in the last ten games and their sixth in a row. I’m reluctant to call this a crisis as long as Paul Millsap (who missed his third consecutive game last night) is out, but Paul Millsap — while he’s very good — is not worth 44 points. So, what’s going on? Let’s look at some of the issues from last night.

Ball movement

Subheadings? Oh man, that’s when you know things are bad. The Hawks aren’t moving the ball like they used to. Now, this isn’t to say the ball movement has died. Even last night there was some very nice ball movement, but the ball is sticking more now than it did in the past. Guys are either keeping hold of the ball too long or shooting it when they should be looking to pass. Here are a few examples from last night.

Take this possession, even though Dennis Schröder scores on this possession, he’s just holding the ball for way too long, it’s stuck with him. For this entire possession no one else touches the ball.

This isn’t Hawks basketball. Great. He scores this time around, but this isn’t always the case. And Dennis isn’t the only one at fault here, there’s an awful lot of standing around. How about some more screening, more runs off of screens?

And here’s the occasion where Dennis doesn’t score. Again, no one else touches the ball during this possession other than Dennis and he takes a contested jumpshot.

This isn’t Hawks basketball, the ball is sticking. Move the ball, run the system.

Again… Dennis takes the ball, glides up the court and — straightaway — steps into a contest jumpshot that doesn’t hit anything.

Just an absolutely horrible shot. And no one else played any part of this possession. This isn’t Hawks basketball.

This was all just from last night, and Dennis isn’t the only person that the ball is sticking with. The problem is that the point guard is supposed to be an extension of the coach on the floor. When Chris Paul is out there, I can honestly believe he’s an extension of Doc Rivers on the court. The same with Tony Parker in San Antonio. If you’re the point guard on a team where the ball is supposed to move, it starts with you to run the system that the coach has implemented over the last four seasons. I don’t feel as though Dennis is acting as an extension of his coach on the court.

The ball is not moving as it should, the players know this full well.

“We’ve got to get back to making our offense where it’s special – where the ball is moving, guy are getting it in their sweet spots, guys are making the extra pass. We’ve got to find that again. Right now, we don’t have that. The way we are designed, the way our offense is designed, the way we are when we are good, we all know what that looks like. We have to get back to that mindset of how do I set the best screens possible? How do I get the ball out of my hands as quick as possible and get it to the next guy and he gets it to the next guy? How do we get in the mindset of passing up a good shot for a great shot? We have to find those things again because that is at the core of who we’ve been when we are doing things well. Right now, we don’t have that.” — Kyle Korver

It starts with the point guard, how many of those (applicable) boxes is Dennis Schröder checking?

Shot selection

This kind of ties into the last point of ball movement. We saw Dennis take some pretty questionable shots, but he’s not the only one. These were only but a few examples from last night.

In transition, Korver gets the ball to Kent Bazemore in the corner. Patrick Patterson is there, he’s in a good position to contest. Despite that, Baze decides to chuck up a three-pointer with 19 seconds left on the shot clock.

There’s, surely, a better shot to be had here?

Again in transition, Baze brings the ball up the floor. Dennis and Korver get to their spots, but Dennis inexplicably misses the open Kyle Korver in favour of taking the shot himself, missing of course.

Korver hasn’t been on fire this season, but 10 times out of 10 that ball should find its way to an open Kyle Korver. And it’s not like Dennis has been shooting the lights out from downtown…

When the ball isn’t moving, the right shot isn’t always taken. Poor shots lead to misses, and misses lead to other teams potentially running at you in transition leaving your defense with little time to set. The Raptors last night outscored the Hawks 12-2 in fastbreak points.

“…You come down and take a quick 3 or you try to force something. It’s frustrating because we all have good intentions but we are just executing the wrong way. We are harping on it. We are talking about it. We see how good we can be when the ball is moving and everyone is touching the ball, using all the pieces we have. If it sticks and it doesn’t move, it’s just a bad team. We have to understand the only way we are going to win is to play the right way.” — Kent Bazemore

Defense

During the slump the Hawks, at times, have played some pretty decent defense but last night was not such an occasion. As it turned out, focusing on Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and seeing if the supporting cast could step up was part of the game plan but there were still times where the Hawks were careless and without energy on the defensive end.

Dwight Howard in particular was at fault on a number of possessions. Dwight’s job is to protect the paint right? When Cory Joseph is charging toward the rim, Dwight does absolutely nothing but watch him go by, doesn’t help the beaten Bazemore, which means Mike Scott has to leave his man, Patrick Patterson, to offer some sort of rim protection. Scott prevents the layup but Joseph, of course, does the sensible thing and fires it out to the open Patrick Patterson who hits the three.

Dwight’s man, who I assume Dwight is waiting for at the top of the key, is not involved in any way during this possession, leaving Dwight with no excuse not to help his team protect the rim.

Here, Dwight and Dennis extend some pressure on Kyle Lowry following the screen by JV, this draws Mike Muscala away from his man, Patrick Patterson. Lowry finds the open Patterson and he, again, converts.

The issue here is that Moose commits to neither covering Dwight’s man, JV, or his own in Patterson and is caught in no man’s land, leaving Patterson — who had already hit a three — with an open shot.

Some nice ball movement from the Raptors leads it to the open Terrence Ross in the corner. Tim Hardaway Jr. does a decent job recovering to prevent Ross from hoisting a three, but Malcolm Delaney (who is supposed to be guarding Lowry) gets drawn towards the ball and loses all sight of Lowry, who is found by Ross and Lowry hits the open three.

Dwight just seemed to check out in the fourth quarter. Here, he just lets former Hawk Lucas Nogueira outrun him (very easily) down the court and Lowry finds him with a lovely lob.

Where’s the urgency here? Where’s the effort? Sure, I get it, you’re down 19 but you can’t just let your man go like this.

And that wasn’t even the end of it. It happened again just a moment later.

I’ve not known the Hawks to just give up like this. They seemed to be completely checked out at this point, and Dwight ‘leads’ them in that regard.

I get it, it’s been a tough schedule and it’s the second night of a back-to-back, but it was the same story for the Raptors having played the Lakers the night before.

“I think it’s been a tough stretch of the schedule. I think we need, as a team, to commit ourselves to the process. We need to have some good practices. We need to have some good film sessions. We’ve got to change some things.” — Kyle Korver

All of these issues that the Hawks have faced since this slump began raised their ugly heads last night with no end in sight. Is Paul Millsap the answer to all of these issues?

As bad as the Hawks were, credit to the Raptors. They moved the ball fantastically, contested a lot of shots and their bench was great — they’re now winners of six straight.

Up next

The Hawks have dipped below .500 with a 10-11 record and it doesn’t get any easier. Monday night, Russell Westbrook and the OKC Thunder roll into Philips Arena in a hugely important game for the Hawks. This game was one of the Hawks’ best wins of last season, it would be as equally important this year, given the circumstances.

]]>http://hawkshoop.com/hawks-raptors-things-of-note-3/feed/2Bench No Longer Bailing out Startershttp://hawkshoop.com/bench-no-longer-bailing-out-starters/
http://hawkshoop.com/bench-no-longer-bailing-out-starters/#respondSat, 03 Dec 2016 18:22:34 +0000http://hawkshoop.com/?p=10373Coach Budenholzer hasn’t lost more than five straight games since his first season in Atlanta — until Friday’s 104-88 loss to the Detroit Pistons. The Hawks returned home Friday night in search of not only a win, but to find their mojo they had when they started the season 9-2. One of — if not the biggest — keys to that run was the bench. A bench that ranked 4th in scoring and averaged 45 points a game in October has now slipped to 32 points per game over the last five games. Both units are struggling in a number of areas, but the offensive possessions are the most glaring.

“I think we are all just in a bit of a rut right now,” Kyle Korver said post-game Friday night. “It’s the first unit, it’s the second unit. We need to get the ball moving again and get everybody involved.”

“I would say a lot of possessions are not good enough,” said a visibly frustrated Mike Budenhozer. “We are not getting the looks that we need to get and then when you do get a good look it puts a lot of pressure to make those good ones. The game gets hard that way; you want to be free flowing. I don’t think we are getting a lot of good possessions to make those good looks feel right.”

During the winning streak, whenever the starters were in a close contest the bench was there to save them. Whenever the starters had a substantial lead, Muscala, Sefolosha and Hardaway stretched it even further. The road trip called for the bench to step up more than ever, as the Hawks played five games in eight days. Those eight days consisted of a starting unit averaging just 25 points a game and shooting 37 percent from the field. Once again, the starters struggled, shooting just 34 percent from the field tonight and once again contributing 45 points. The reserves simply weren’t enough to gloss over the troubles hindering the 1st unit.

“Some things we have to get better with, our pick and roll actions,” Kyle Korver said. “Dennis and Dwight are still new to each other in a lot of ways and they’re still figuring it out. We have to do whatever we can to help them, give them better spacing, but I think it’s a lot of parts of the offense that’s a problem, not just the pick and roll.”

The losing streak hurts, yes, but even worse is an absence of fear in opponents when they have to try and stifle this offense. An offense that was once able to wear defenses down until a white flag was waved or break out on a 12-2 run in a blink of an eye to shrink a deficit currently looks like a distant relative.

Defenses are making a stronger effort to close the paint off pick and rolls and, by doing so, throwing off an offense that works best when the inside presence is established first. Before the five game winning streak ended, Atlanta was ranked fourth in points in the paint — averaging 47 points a game — however, over the last three games, they’ve been held to just 38 points a game.

“Teams are sending three or four bodies at me as I’m rolling to the basket to make sure I don’t get any easy baskets,” Dwight Howard said. “They are forcing our guards to make plays, so it’s just a little adjustment that we are going to fix.”

The Hawks don’t have many off days to rest and watch film to recuperate,m as they face the 2nd seed Toronto Raptors on Saturday night on the back end of a back-to-back, and return home Monday where Russell Westbrook awaits them.

The Atlanta Hawks (without Paul Millsap) dropped their fourth game in succession — and their seventh in eight games — after losing out to the Phoenix Suns at Talking S(h)tick Resort Arena, 107-109. Brandon Knight led the Suns in scoring with 23 points while receiving other significant contributions from P.J. Tucker and Jared Dudley, who scored 17 points each.

End of the road (trip)

Atlanta’s five game road trip is finally over. It’s been a rough week and a bit for the Hawks, five games in seven nights and only a 1-4 record to show for all their efforts. It’s safe to say everyone is looking forward to putting this road trip behind them and getting back home to Atlanta.

“…it’ll be good to get back home, sleep in your own bed and get ready to get back at it.” — Kent Bazemore

“You never feel good when you have a tough road trip and you’ve lost a few in a row. But I think we are looking forward to going home…” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

It was a weird game for the Hawks to drop. Not so much of the opposition (although the Suns were 5-13 heading into last night’s game) but listen to these stats from last night’s game:

The Hawks shot 50% from the field, shot 36% from behind the arc, scored over 100 points, scored 21 second chance points, scored 20 fastbreak points, scored 29 points off of the Suns’ turnovers and had three players who scored 20 or more points… And still lost. Kent Bazemore had an… interesting, shall we say, way of describing how the Hawks have been playing of late.

Not having Paul Millsap (hip) to call upon definitely hurt the Hawks but this was a very much winnable game regardless. The Hawks looked a little tired defensively at times, which is to be expected on the last game of a long road trip. But in saying that, the Hawks should’ve done a better job guarding Jared Dudley on the three-point line.

The Hawks hung around in the fourth quarter having overcome a 10 point deficit earlier in the game, but an 11-0 Suns run in the fourth quarter (sparked by Leandro Barbosa and Jared Dudley) left the Hawks with too much work to do, but they sure gave it a go. Good to see that fight.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say the Suns took this game a little more seriously than the Hawks did, I don’t think they respected the opposition as they should’ve. For the Hawks, while of course they want to win, the mindset was more than likely along the, hypothetical lines, of “Let’s just get this over with and get out of here”, the mindset more so looking ahead to get home after their exhausting more so than the game itself. The Suns really wanted to win this game. They face Golden State on Saturday and have let a few games slip that they believe they should’ve won.

“We just knew how important this game was. We’ve got a tough one coming up (Saturday at Golden State) not that we’re looking ahead, but we felt that we gave up some games that we should have won, we tried to put a lot of emphasis on this game and playing the way we know we can play.

“…The past couple games, we’ve had a chance to win them and teams we should’ve beat in our opinion.” — Brandon Knight

I could be wrong, that’s probably the case and unlike many I’m OK with being wrong, but it just seemed as though the Suns wanted this one a little more and were more focused.

Back to the those game stats, you look at those and you would wonder how the Hawks managed to lose this game. Well, it’s a story the Hawks know all too well this season…

Turnovers

Yes, turnovers. It’s all well and good that the Hawks scored 29 points off of the Suns’ turnovers but the Hawks turned the ball over 20 times, leading to to 27 Phoenix points. You can point fingers at the tired defense, Mike Muscala’s tough game etc. but these 20 turnovers absolutely cost the Hawks this game. In a two point loss (which was really a five point loss since Baze swished a meaningless three at the buzzer) this was the difference. Dwight Howard led with six turnovers while Dennis Schröder added another five.

Peachtree Hoops’ Brad Rowland brought up a good point on the Locked On Hawks podcast: how on earth does Dwight end up with six turnovers when his usage last night wasn’t that great? Strange…

Another career night for Dennis

Dennis Schröder managed to follow up his strong performance against Golden State with a career night in Phoenix, 31 points on 13-23 shooting.

In the absence of Paul Millsap, I thought Dwight Howard would be the man to step up to the plate in Millsap’s absence but it was Dennis who really stepped up and seemed to really take on that scoring role. But a lot of it was controlled, which was surprising to me — 13-of-23 shooting is efficient. The encouraging thing to see was that Dennis wasn’t falling in love with the jumper, he got the rim and — unlike the GSW game — he converted, 7-of-10 at the rim last night. It was also good to see Dennis chain two strong games together on the road. Hopefully he can build upon this road trip

Tim Hardaway Jr.’s positive performance

THJ had it going last night — 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting — and as a result he was playing the minutes that Kyle Korver usually plays, Korver only played 16 minutes last night as he continues to struggle to make a meaningful impact in games. THJ’s production off the bench was big for the Hawks, especially since the bench was minus the production of Muscala (since he got the starting nod in place of Paul) and pleased his coach with his performance.

“He was playing well, offensively, defensively. He gives us another ball handler. A guy who is attacking the basket a little bit. I thought it was one of his better overall games, including defensively. I thought he competed there.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

Tim also produced two highlight worthy dunks.

Like Schröder, consistency can be an issue with Hardaway. We’ll see if he’s able to follow up this performance with another one against the Detroit Pistons (where his father is an assistant coach) on Friday night.

Foul trouble in the first quarter

Part of the reason Phoenix were able to win this game was their 36 point first quarter and their free throw difference (19 FTM compared to Atlanta’s 8), and 10 free throws were made in the first quarter as the Suns shot 13 free throwsas the Hawks committed eight fouls.

“We started off real slow and kept fouling. As a team, we can’t do that. We can’t put them on the line with five, six minutes to go in the first quarter. We put our team in a big hole to get out of.” — Tim Hardaway Jr.

And, unfortunately for the Hawks, five of those fouls were distributed among their point guards: three for Malcolm Delaney and two for Dennis Schröder. A game like this would’ve been a decent time for the Hawks to have a third point guard, but that’s not a luxury the Hawks have, so they sent out Kent Bazemore to replace Malcolm Delaney (who had to come in after Dennis picked up two fouls) once he picked up his third foul. Coach Bud said that habing to deviate from his normal lineups as a result of this foul trouble was an issue.

“It kind of threw off our rotations a lot.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

Mike Muscala’s tough night

Moose got the starting nod in place of the injured Paul Millsap, but wasn’t able to make the opportunity count as he would’ve liked, scoreless on 0-of-5 shooting in 29 minutes. It’s a shame that Muscala struggled like this because if he had been able to make a few shots we could be talking about a completely different outcome. He did, however, make an impact on the defensive end with two blocks.

The Return

‘The Threegional Manager’, Mike Scott, finally made his return from a knee injury last night after missing the first 18 games of the season. Unfortunately, Scott only played three minutes and didn’t look too hot (which is to be expected since he hasn’t been able to play in a while) but it was good to see Scott back on the floor. Where he fits in the rotation since the emergence of Mike Muscala as a regular member of the rotation will be interesting to see.

Point-Dwight back it again

Back when the Hawks played in Miami, Dwight Howard tried his hand at running the point in transition. He dribbled past Hassan Whiteside before throwing an attempted alley-oop off the backboard, missing his teammate Paul Millsap, to whom the lob was intended for.

Last night, point-Dwight was back at it again. Tragic Bronson alert! I repeat, Tragic Bronson alert!

The lob to Millsap was somewhat close to Paul but this… this isn’t even close. Mike Muscala wasn’t even in the paint when Dwight threw this lob. We’ll see you on Shaqtin’, Dwight…

Up next

The Hawks (10-9) finally get to go home and will take on the Detroit Pistons on Friday night at Philips Arena, where they desperately need to bounce-back.

The Atlanta Hawks suffered their sixth loss in seven games as they dropped a tightly contested fixture against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland, 105-100. The Warriors had three players who scored 20 or more points, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry both scored 25 points while Klay Thompson added 20 points to the Warriors’ cause.

A valiant effort, reason for optimism going forward

Although the Hawks did lose their sixth game in their last seven games, they can be proud of how they played competed against arguably the best team in the NBA, the Warriors now winners of 12 straight games. This was not a bad loss. The Hawks played some good defense — holding the team with the highest offense efficiency in the Warriors (115 points per 100 possessions heading into this game) to 101 points per 100 possessions — and played some good offense, much better than we’ve seen it of late and they cracked 100 points for the first time in six games.

“Definitely better than what it (the Hawks’ offense) has been. We still have to get better. It’s a loss. It goes on to the record. It’s tough but we’ll take and build on it.” — Paul Millsap

The Hawks seemed to run out of gas a little bit in the fourth quarter, where the Warriors outscored the Hawks 25-19. The Hawks missed some decent looks and when the Warriors’ defense clamped down, you just weren’t sure who was going to step up for the Hawks offensively.

A period of the game that, I thought, proved costly for the Hawks was that period of the game where end of the third quarter ends and the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. Tim Hardaway Jr. misses a three-point attempt in the dying embers of the third quarter, and from the resulting stop Ian Clarke drains the buzzer-beating three to cut the Hawks lead from four to one heading into the fourth quarter. The Warriors, with the crowd now energised, reeled a quick 6-0 run that gave the Warriors a five point lead, a lead they would not relinquish.

“I think we’ve got to execute, we’ve got to feel like we’re getting better shots. I think the end of the third quarter, they made their buzzer-beater, they come out with two or three straight buckets, they get up six or seven, and I don’t know that we ever came back and took a lead. We probably cut it to two or three, but those two or three possessions or two minutes, that stretch, you’ve just got to be better for 48 minutes.” — Coach Mike Budenholzer

Most fans realistically knew that this wasn’t a game the Hawks were going to win but they pushed the Warriors all the way (leading for most of this game), and that’s encouraging considering the slump the Hawks find themselves in, something that the Hawks can build on.

“It’s encouraging. It was a tough team at home to play against and I think subliminally the guys had the mindset of if we came out like we did these past few games we would gotten ran out of the gym, so I think our focuses were a little heightened and we had some good moments there. We led for the majority of the game and you know you got to give them credit. They made plays down the stretch and they came out with a big win.” — Kent Bazemore

They sure made some plays down the stretch, particularly on the defensive end and, more specifically, Draymond Green. With the Hawks down four points Green, on separate possessions in the final minute, blocked both Dennis Schröder’s and Kent Bazemore’s shot attempts, and on both occasions blocked it off of them, resulting in the Warriors regaining possession — crushing blows.

“It’s like a double slap in the face. When you get the shot block and it go off you out of bounds? It’s pretty funny. I like those.” — Draymond Green

Hawks radio play-by-play man, Steve Holman had an absolute gem of a line when Draymond did his little dance after he blocked Bazemore’s shot.

"Draymond Green is dancing like they just won the World Championship, which they didn't last year because of him." –@RealVoiceofHawk

Fantastic, although some Warrior, and NBA fans alike, did take some exception.

Tough loss but if the Hawks played like this going forward, they should be just fine. Part of me is slightly worried that this Hawks performance was more to do with the Hawks rising to the occasion under the bright lights of the Bay against one of the best teams in the league rather than actually finding a fix for the issues the Hawks have been facing of late, and the Warriors didn’t exactly play their best game. We shall see.

Dennis stars but other starters struggle

You could argue whether this was Dennis Schröder’s best game of the season. He scored 24 points on 10-of-20 shooting while dishing out six assists.

What I liked about his performance was that most of the shots Dennis took were decently in rhythm with the offense. Sure, there were some possessions where he tried to do too much (nothing new there), but for the most part the shots he took were decent shots. I would like to see Dennis convert a few more of his shots at the rim though, 2-of-7 at the rim last night.

But on a more positive note, Dennis definitely took it to Steph Curry not only on the offensive end but defensively too, both he, Thabo Sefolosha and Malcolm Delaney did a good job limiting Curry to a 6-for-17 shooting performance.

If Dennis can string together performances even similar to this on a consistent basis, that’d be fantastic, but of course this is the issue with Schröder. His next test will be against Eric Bledsoe of the Phoenix Suns.

Besides Dwight Howard (who put up 14 points and 16 rebounds) the rest of the Atlanta starters struggled shooting the ball. Kyle Korver was locked down (three points on 1-of-6 shooting and 1-of-4 from downtown), Kent Bazemore (4-of-15 from the field, 0-of-6 from behind the arc and was a little out of control with some of his drives to the rim) wasn’t able follow up his strong Lakers game and Paul Millsap — again — struggled from the field (3-of-11 from the field) but did manage to get himself to the free throw line where he shot 6-of-7.

The encouraging thing is that the Hawks were this close to beating the Warriors and 3 of the 5 starters did not shoot the ball well at all.

4 man bench shines

Coach Bud is known to go quite deep into his rotation, both in the regular season and — to the annoyance of some — in the playoffs. Despite missing Mike Scott and Tiago Splitter through injury (as the Hawks have all season), Bud only called upon four bench players last night: Mike Muscala, Malcolm Delaney, Thabo Sefolosha and Tim Hardaway Jr. And they all stepped up.

Tim Hardaway Jr. (despite shooting 3-of-8 from the field and 1-of-6 from behind the arc) led the bench with 10 points while Moose, Thabo and Delaney all scored nine points apiece. This bench boost definitely kept the Hawks in this game and, considering how some of the starters shot last night, the bench alone may have prevented this game from being a blowout.

I wanted to praise Malcolm Delaney in particular who, although he cooled off in the second half, had a great stretch in the first half where he scored nine points on 3-of-3 shooting and dished out four assists in nine first half minutes.

While the bench in general did cool off in the second quarter, the Hawks’ bench still outscored the Warriors’ 37-27.

Mike Scott on the broadcast

During the first half, the Hawks broadcast had — arguably I’ll admit — the greatest Hawks forward ever, Mike Scott, on the call. They asked him about his recovery from a knee procedure and Scott said he’s “day-to-day” at this stage, so we should expect to see him back on the court soon.

Something that got a great laugh out of me was when Hawks sideline reporter Andre Aldridge asked Mike had he been able to shoot while he was unable to play, and Mike Scott replied “You say shoot? Of course, that’s what I do…”. Oh, it sure is…

I feel as though I shouldn’t have to explain why this is funny (because most Hawks fans should know), but I suppose I may as well. I laughed because Mike Scott likes to shoot and, of course, he would pick out the word “shoot” above all other words. It’s like when a child is sat around the dinner table and the word ice cream comes up in conversation and the child excitedly asks “Did someone say ice-cream?”. It’s like that, only shooting with Mike Scott. Well, I at least thought it was funny…

Up next

The Hawks (10-8) wrap up their five game road trip with a trip to the desert and a matchup with the Phoenix Suns. This is definitely, and I know it’s early, a must win game. The Hawks are currently 1-3 on this road trip and if the Hawks lose this game in Phoenix it would not only be the Hawks’ seventh loss in eight games, but they would also end this road trip 1-4 and that’s a very unsuccessful road trip. 2-3 is somewhat OK (not great but OK) but 1-4 would be considered a failure of a road trip.